Unseen Evil

This movie is not a big budget feature. It's a low budget example of what used to be called "exploitation". Knowing this, the viewer can adjust their expectations accordingly. All the usual things are here; continuity errors, bad or ham-fisted acting, low quality special effects, and on and on. These flubs don't preclude enjoying the movie. "Unseen Evil" (or "Unseen" or "The Unbelievable") actually functions pretty well. The somewhat hackneyed plot device of a college professor and some students/guides going to explore a Native American artifact site gets turned on its head when we learn the professor and some of his associates are mercenaries planning to plunder the artifacts and sell them. In one fell swoop, this turns into a thriller, as the unknowing members of the group are tied up and forced to participate. Of course, there is an evil entity protecting the site, and the looters/kidnap victims run afoul of it. What pleased me about the movie was the effort that went into building backstories for some of the characters, as well as their interactions once they're put upon by the entity. Greed, regret, and betrayal all come into play; these characters seem like real people, making decisions and taking action based on understandable motives. The acting is, for the most part, passable. This was filmed in the late 90s/early 2000s, so the special effects aren't so special across the expanse of 20 years, but the filmmakers do a decent job with some of the practical effects, holding to the old idea of showing the monster as little as possible. Still, if you can adjust those expectations, it can be an enjoyable ride.

This is a very surprisingly enjoyable film for a low-budget horror movie. It stars Richard Hatch (Battlestar Galactica) as the leader of a young archeological team who travels deep into the woods to search some caves for artifacts. Unknown to them, an ancient evil is awakening , guarding the secrets of the burial site. Betrayal also threatens to destroy them from inside the group. I bought this movie on DVD, and was totally hooked after the first ten minutes. The director Jay Woelfel has definitely improved since his last film, Iron Thunder, also starring Hatch. The best way to describe Unseen Evil is to say that it's The Blair Witch Project meets Predator. It has some very suspenseful and entertaining moments, and some pretty good performances. It is a very decent horror movie, and one that I recommend to horror fans, and fans of Richard Hatch. The special effects aren't on the level of say, Star Wars, but are enjoyable. My advice, give it a chance.

UNSEEN EVIL opens with some hokey Native American lore about the title entity. Once glimpsed in its cave lair, we know for sure we're in bad-bad CGI country! After about ten years of opening credits, we're introduced to the disposable humans who are on their way to the selfsame cave.

Enter Ranger Chuck MacNeil (Tim Thomerson) who is the only likeable character, as well as the only one with a functioning brain. Horror -sort of- erupts when the group's true motives are revealed, pi$$ing off the cave monster to no end! Yep, there's a treasure involved.

At first it's okay, since the beast is invisible. Alas, it soon materializes, revealing the full extent of the computer generated ineptitude. If it hadn't been for the pitiful presentation, this could have been a low-low budget version of PREDATOR. Instead, it's terrible.

REMEMBER THIS ADDAGE: If the budget is super-low, do we show the monster? No!

BONUS: This movie does contain one of the most rib-tickling decapitations ever filmed!

PLUS: The "gold" treasure is obviously painted balsa wood!...

Okay, I simply had to see this since I saw it's "sequel" first (about two years ago), UNSEEN EVIL 2 (aka ALIEN 3000), and I immensely enjoyed it because it was truly one of the worst movies I had seen in a very long time. From it, I also learned that Tim Thomerson apparently starred in the "original". All this was reason enough for me to sit my a§§ down with this "original" epic tale of Alien Terror & Indian Mysticism.

So how did it go down this time? On a bad movie-scale, this "original" is about twice less fun than the "sequel". Does that actually make it a better movie...? I have absolutely no idea...

It's not even fun writing a user-comment for it (while the sequel was). We got annoying people running around in some woods, being chased and ripped to shreds by crappy CGI (make no mistake; it's not as fun as it sounds). But if that's your thing, then sure, go ahead and watch it. I'll always be willing to give retarded rubbish like this a peek, but I can only take so much of it.

I'll be generous and give it one point for what happens to Tim Thomerson. Didn't see that one coming. I guess the producers realized they were spending too much money hiring him, so they just decided on the spot to write him out of the script.

By the way, if you happen to love UNSEEN EVIL, then go watch DEMONICUS (2001). You'll have a blast. It's even from the same director (Jay Woelfel) and its more or less the same movie, only this time with a possessed idiot running around in a plastic Roman-times inspired body-armour, slashing people in the woods. Have fun.

I don't have to say much. Everything is already told by the other users. All i have to say is that this "movie" gave me those rare moments in life when you literally stay with your mouth open. Especially at its ending. It was THAT bad. And thankfully and i didn't watch it from the beginning. I put 2 stars instead of 1 just because i didn't change the channel and made me stay and watch how bad a movie can be. The acting was laughable, the cgi effects are ridiculous (i mean, why didn't just use animatronics or something cheaper if they didn't have money? it would be more real than this!). I can't believe that people actually put money on this (no matter how low the amount), there are much better and more "professional" movies on youtube.